Letters to the Editor
-
Please wake me Salon is doing journalism again
Sorry, Cosmo readers. For a minute there I thought I was on Salon.com.
-
@Shopping Challenge
I don't have "issues," I have shopping challenges. The trick is to find what I want, what fits, what's pretty, and what I'm willing to pay for in the size I need as quickly and efficiently as possible.
Bra hassles? Want something that's functional but doesn't like like twin windsocks? Try BRA Smith online. It has a couple of boutiques in NYC, but the online version is just fine. For all I know, it may have a help line.
Same thing with shoes and boots. If you're one of the people who walks so much that the calf-less wonder boots just don't zip, Zappo will help. So will googling on "wide-calf boots." And they're cheaper than in the department stores.
Just a few clicks. Once you know your size, you really don't ever have to bother again.
-
"What about the clothes," indeed!
Once upon a time - the 50's, 60's and maybe into the 70's - blouses and dress bodices had "darts." They were stitched-in folds that shaped the garment in a way that it surrounded the bustline in a modest and comfortable manner.
Sometime in the last 25 years or so, clothing manufacturers decided that darts were unnecessary and started making ladies' tops with "straight" fabric, no allowances for curves. The result? For the smaller-bosomed, the annoyance of front-button blouses that leave gaps to be filled with pins or snaps. For the more generously endowed, the need to stick to back-closure or pullover styles entirely, because that gap is just too big!
Where, or where, is the public outcry and protest against THIS injustice to womankind?
-
Darts at H&M!
Sometime in the last 25 years or so, clothing manufacturers decided that darts were unnecessary and started making ladies' tops with "straight" fabric, no allowances for curves. The result? For the smaller-bosomed, the annoyance of front-button blouses that leave gaps to be filled with pins or snaps. For the more generously endowed, the need to stick to back-closure or pullover styles entirely, because that gap is just too big!
H&M!!! H&M makes dress shirts that are darted! Holla! They're also a little stretchy so they accommodate curves both large and miniature. I think the one I'm wearing now cost $16.
-
Trade ya anyday, sister
You have no clue the demeaning crap small breasted women must endure.
Wish I had a quarter for every snotty woman who made a crack about my 'boyish' figure.
For every deranged man who told me that he bet I was good in bed 'because flat chested women have to try harder.'
Please. Spare me.
-
Stop Being Self Conscious
Your story is my story--only 20 years later and I never hated my large boobies.
Nevertheless, I did not get an appropriate fitting until I was 50. The closest I came was the time, in Seattle, when a assistant manager at Nordstrums spent an hour with me while I tried on every bra in the store. The style I finally bought gave me absolutely no support, but it was the best out of the bunch. Since then, I've had two children and mine now hang past my pupick. My store of choice is Intimacy (90th and Madison). My first fitting was nirvana. I went from a 42DD to a 34 H. I no longer jiggled when I walked nor did I sag. What a revelation. My first bra was utilitarian, but since then I've gone sexy. I was just looking at the Intimacy website admiring the choices.
I am now a zealot about getting the right fitting. I took my then 14 year old daughter. Turns out she was not a B cup, but a C. Today she is a D. I recently took my younger daughter for a fitting. Unfortunately, she takes after my mother-in-law and is at risk for being flat as a board. Nonetheless, they had a bra for her and fitted it to her slim body.
I do not trust the department store fittings--the tale of the tape is often inaccurate.
All women need to get fitted by professionals who look at your tits and bring you the right size. I'm hoping my daughters, as a result of my vigilance, do not suffer from sagging, pancake hooters.
-
Talk about "six of one and half a dozen of the other"
Good news - H&M has "fitted" tops!
Bad news - H&M is not exactly union-friendly.
What's a good progressive woman to do???
-
Enough Already! Men Don't Have It So Easy Either, You Sniveling Cliche's!
I'm so sick of hearing women bitch and moan about their tits. As a gay man, I couldn't care less...and any straight man who says he does probably has another reason for listening. Women are never satisfied! If their tits are small, they bitch. If their tits are average, they bitch that they want 'em bigger. If their tits are huge, they bitch about that, too! No wonder straight men complain about you gals so much!
And for the block heads who are still deluded enough to think that men "have it all," consider those in my gender who are overly endowed. We have our issues too, I can assure you. And before you get too high-and-mighty, my fellows who share this issue tell me that women, too, ask that fateful question, "What size is that?"
There are so many issues with being an overly endowed man that an entire chat room and web site has been set up (The Large Penis Support Group, or www.LPSG.org), and has hundreds of thousands of members (no pun intended).
My ten cents' worth.
-
Fashion is cyclical - one of these days B-cups will be sexy again!
Remember those swingin' 60's? In that hothouse of "anything goes" regarding matters of sex, the "ideal" female figure was...Twiggy. Or someone sort-of-like her. (Jackie and Audrey, for example.) SMALL bust, non-existent waist, where-are-they hips, long and usually well-exposed and -decorated legs. (Something like the "emancipated female" of the 20's, in fact.) It was almost as if the cultural arbiters were glad to bury Marilyn and all she stood for in terms of pulchritude. (Which may be why the amply-endowed Liz, et al saw their careers decline.)
Sometime in the last couple decades, Marilyn's ghost has arisen in the form of Pam Anderson, et al. Eventually this too will pass and the more modestly-endowed female figure will once again be admired. For many of us it can't happen too soon.